


Mothers and Sons

by sgt_majorette



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ficlet, Friendship, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, The Quidditch Pitch: Leaving Feast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-19
Updated: 2008-08-19
Packaged: 2018-10-27 08:57:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10805901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgt_majorette/pseuds/sgt_majorette
Summary: Astoria Greengrass? Who sawthatone coming?





	Mothers and Sons

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** I don't believe in "original characters". I _do_ believe in backstory, though...

Blaise Zabini must have inherited his hauteur from his father, because Madame Dalma’s smoky, heavily accented voice was warm and kind: she took Narcissa’s pale, trembling hand in her slender, dark ones.

“Ah, your poor ‘usband, _chère_! The men, they have not our – oh, _qu’est-ce que c’est_ , yes, stamina. They suffer so! You must serve him white tea, _très délicat_ , but in the Russian style, with jam. I shall give you some, of _fraises de bois_ , which I have even picked the fruit myself. You will see, it will calm his mind…”

Blaise, dutifully, doggedly attempting to divert a shell-shocked Draco with light conversation, overheard his mother; he rolled his eyes and grinned.

Lucius Malfoy was a very annoying invalid: wandless, feeble, querulous, and –oh, God!– _incontinent_. Narcissa, dabbing at her eyes with a scrap of black silk Alençon, clinging to her son in a most affecting way, would make a fetching widow.

Dalma, who seemed to regard husbands as so much costume jewelry, to be replaced when it became tarnished or unfashionable, understood these things.

* * *

Valeria Goyle looked up from her menu, presenting her delicately powdered cheek to her dear friend’s affectionate air-kiss. “Cissa, darling. So sad about Lucius.” _Bitch_ , she thought. Valeria had had the worst time having her husband declared dead, gaining control of the family’s finances, and keeping her son out of Azkaban, whereas Cissa’s affairs seemed to arrange themselves almost… magically. _So_ not fair. And Cissa looked fabulous in the black silk widow’s robes that made Valeria herself look sallow.

“So very disheartening,” replied Cissa, in the faded whisper she had adopted as an accessory to her widow’s weeds. “We must now live for our children, mustn’t we?”

To business, then. Valeria Goyle had planned on the Bulstrode girl for her Gregory: she would have done very well for him, as he’d gotten his looks from his father and thus couldn’t afford to be picky. But Millicent had disappeared into the wilds of America after OWL year. Narcissa had wasted years on her acquaintance with that henwitted Daisy Parkinson, and then her daughter, upon whom Narcissa had depended to be a bit shrewder, had opened up her foolish mouth the day of the unpleasantness at Hogwarts, thus making herself poison for a young man in poor Draco’s delicate political situation.

So that left Tracey Davis, Daphne Greengrass, and… Oh, dear.

“Has Marietta Edgecombe’s face cleared up, does anyone know?”

Valeria sighed. No Ravenclaw would take Gregory, no matter how disfigured and/or bitter she might be; it broke her maternal heart to admit it. The other girl with the complexion issues, surely she was a Hufflepuff?

“Oh, Cissa. I think I shall require another mimosa. Hasn’t _anyone_ we know got daughters? Ermintrude Crabbe, didn’t she have a girl?”

“Canada,” sighed Narcissa.

* * *

Rivka Mandelbaum Greengrass detested Narcissa Malfoy on principle. _Shiksa_ , she muttered. _Nazi_. What, there are no Jewish Purebloods in England? The Goldsteins are chopped liver? The Zellers? The Frobishers?

Well, _her_ mother had warned her about good-looking, blonde, blue-eyed David Greengrass (“ _This_ is a _Jew_?” she had wailed) and now look what had happened. David was gone, leaving her with two daughters named Daphne and Astoria, and no way out of tea with _that woman_. Daphne had made a rude noise at the mention of the name, bless her little dyke heart, but Astoria had begged her mother to go. “Mum, please! Draco is so-o-o-o…”

“So handsome? So clever??” sneered Daphne. “So _goyish_? He’s an albino weasel, is what he is. Tell you what, Mama. _I’ll_ marry him. Astoria can have what’s left after I pound the Pureblooded, Deatheating Nazi shite out of him!”


End file.
